Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Partition over accubond?

either would be great for deer/hogs/goats. If elk is on the menu step up to partitions..............also check SPP for Nosler seconds. Partition seconds can be found cheaper than AB seconds. Have bought and shot hundreds of Nosler seconds, wtih no issues. Most times its staining or discoloration of the copper.

I'm one of those guys that hates surprises so I'd pick the Partition.

I have 50 years of experience with Partition in various calibers. I have always been pleased with them in both effects and in accuracy.
I am willing to try the bonded bullets too, and so far I have seen good results, but nothing better then any Partition I have used in the past. I hope to kill an elk with a 250 gr 9.3MM Accu-Bond in the next few weeks. But I have not killed enough game with bonded bullets (of all brands combined) to give any clear answer to the question "which is better"?

Any bullet made anywhere is going to have a very hard time surpassing the performance of the Nosler Partition. I and a friend are hopefully going to be importing some premium hunting bullets from Europe soon, and our hope is that we can match the performance of the Partitions, and sell them at a lower price. But my testing is not complete yet.

We'll have the report ready next spring.

I'll take the Partition in most situations. If I need the extra BC or if Partitions don't group well, I'll go AB.

Coincidentally, I recovered two 140 grain Nosler Accubonds from a nice 29" four point mule deer my son shot yesterday. Both bullets are fully expanded, with almost no shank left. I have photos on my phone but I don't have a clue how to post them. The bullets are from a 7mm STW., range was about 150-200yards.

Tried some factory Federal loads in the early 80's loaded with partitions. Had 3 shot pencil through a middlin-sized whitetail at 150 yards. Two through the shoulders and one through the neck. Took them home and fired the rest of the box into a pile of sand at 50 feet. Out of the 17 I shot, 12 never expanded a bit. This out of a 25-06. I swore off them from then on.
Fast forward and I tried them again in a Model 99 243 and a Wby Vanguard 243. The Wby loves them, the Savage, not so much. The Wby also loves the accubond. Depending on the stand I'm hunting, I'll load with one or the other in the Wby.
In my 25-06's and others, it's mostly the Accubonds I'm shooting. Accuracy has been better and terminal performance has definitely been there.
Shot my elk this past year with the Accubond LR in my 264. One through both shoulders passed completely through. Had to put a second one in as he decided he wasn't dead yet and nicked a twig. Penetration through the ham, hip bone and about 4-5' of elk and lodged under the hide in the off shoulder ended the discussion.

The only Partition I've recovered is a 150gr from my STW at the same range.

The partition is the benchmark for performance, that's for sure. I've killed many, many big game animals with both partitions and accubonds, and I haven't noticed a difference in killing power between them at all.

In 30+ years of seeing multiple deer and elk each year, plus other game, shot with Partitions I can't recall seeing one fail to show some kind of expansion--even on a pass through. I can also remember several deer and elk killed by clients with factory Federal Premium Partition ammo.

The other day as I was leaving camp I came across a sounder of very young pigs. Wanting one for the pot, I waited until the largest boar - 20 pounds or so - cleared the rest, and he stood facing me about 35 yards away. The load was a 160-gr Partition over 45.0 grains of Hunter, not chronographed but I'd guess somewhere between 2450 - 2500 fps. The bullet entered just below and to the right of the right ear and traveled down the spine, completely destroying the right backstrap. As a matter of fact, when I got to him his innards were coming out his back. When I was skinning the hams, I found a piece of lead about the size of a pea just under the skin. That was all that was left of the front of the bullet. The back part is probably up in Georgia someplace. In this case, the front half of the bullet definitely came apart and shredded.

I believe the " open" end and the lack of a boat tail benefits the partition to " slug" the barrel and keep the partition accurate where there maybe some crown damage or erosion in older rifles/ carbines.

The accubond having a solid boat tail base may let gasses escape as it leaves the barrel if the crown is not uniform.

Anecdotal evidence, I have two rifles that were recrowned that shot accubonds better after the work. ( but one also got a new trigger) so my observation may be biased.

Partitions all the way for this old geezer....

Is there a general rule-of-thumb for velocity to keep below so the PT front half doesn't shred? I tend to like my bullets to stay together incase I have to hit game where the meat is.

Prefer partitions, especially after I had the tips fall off of some 200 gr 30 cal ABs. Probably an isolated instance but still a pain after they were loaded.

stay behind the shoulder, take neck shots, or be willing to sacrifice the impact side shoulder. There rear half will penetrate.

Here is a recovered 6.5 140grn partition out of a Swede at 2920fps muzzle. 183 yard impact on a big mature muley..............As you can see, front peeled back to the partition, lead got ate up inside the animal, rear penetrated 20+ inches

I have fired more partitions than accubond bullets. Like others here, I seem to get a bit smaller groups with the pt compared to the ab, but definitely not enough to fret over. I do know I recovered more accubonds than partitions from dead game. I did notice accubonds sported a wider expanded 'mushrooms' compared to the partitions collected.

I saw no 'accubomb' problems with accubonds neither, just dead game with occasional busted shoulders, shattered spines or nice short blood trails if there was any..... Kinda like the partition.

Text book performance.

Magnum: What load are you shooting? I am still trying to work out max loads for the Swede with R26. Coming up with 2950 or so for 129-130s as a mild maximum load maybe nudging 3,000 but will proceed cautiously. I was concerned about the 129 LRAB being too soft for closer shots but guess I don't need to be too concerned if they are like the 140s at all.

Im using Norma MRP 51grn. and rem 9 1/2 primers with Lapua brass. 3.150oal

The front portion of Partitions don't "shred". The front portion has a relatively thin jacket and opens readily. It is not unusual to find most of the lead in the front half gone with the front jacket peeled all the way back to the partition. When hitting elk bone it's not unusual to find all the front lead gone and a few wisps of the front jacket remaining.

They're supposed to work that way............

The front core of Partitions is also a relatively soft lead alloy, with 2.5% antimony. Most cup-and-core big game bullets have lead cores with 3-4% antimony.

The rear core of Partitions is a harder lead alloy, so the rear end will retain its shape, but the exact amount of antimony varies a little depending on the specific bullet.

Apparently quite a few hunters still don't understand the Partition. John Nosler deliberately designed it as an all-around bullet for deer-sized game on up. He WANTED the front core to expand relatively easily, and fragment, because in his hunting experience (and he had a lot) bullets that fragmented at least somewhat killed deer-sized game quicker. But he also wanted a tougher rear-end of the bullet to penetrate deeper on game bigger than deer.

In recent years, however, somehow higher weight retention has become the measure of "killing power," for at least some hunters. These often complain about how the front end of Partitions performs, or even consider a "disappeared" front core a failure, like they would an empty jacket from a cup-and-core bullet.

AccuBonds were designed to replicate the basic weight retention performance of Partitions, but with a plastic tip for those who always whined about Nosler not offering a "tipped Partition." They do exactly that, but because AccuBonds don't have a Partition many hunters don't perceive the front-end weight-loss as a "failure," as they do when recovering a Partition without a front core.